The New Voices of Fantasy Read online

  But “Come Lady Death” was published in the Atlantic Monthly, won an O’Henry Award in 1963, has been reprinted in many anthologies, and became an opera, with music by David Carlson, in 1993. And by then I was long since set—with an unintentional assist from Frank O’Connor—on an artistic path I’d truly never visualized as mine. I read Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and Wolfe as I was supposed to do, and wrote my dutiful papers on Mailer and Styron. But the ones I apprenticed myself to, and tried to imitate, and wanted to be, were Lord Dunsany (the master, yes, and he was still publishing when I was in college), James Stephens, Dinesen, Flann O’Brien, and John Collier. They still are.

  The fantastic literature of my youth was consigned, with rare exceptions (most of those European or Latin), to a ghetto of pulp magazines and B or C movies, and even the most successful of its practitioners were well aware of this. Hence the following mini-memoir.

  Years ago, knowing that I was scheduled to speak at an annual meeting of the Science Fiction Writers of America—which now includes and Fantasy in its designation—Ursula Le Guin, wisest of us all, warned me as follows: “Remember that most of your audience will be drunk by the time you get up to speak, and remember always that all of us feel, to one degree or another, that mainstream fiction has been stealing our ideas—and even our classic clichés—for generations, and selling them back to us as ‘Magic Realism.’ Tell them that, loudly and repeatedly, and the ones who can still stand up will be buying you drinks all night. And never forget that this is a small, highly incestuous group, and a lot of people here have been married to, or sleeping with, other members of the group—so watch what you say.”

  I followed her advice, and survived the evening. Even got asked back the next year, which tells you something. . . .

  The group of remarkable young writers included in this book aren’t at all likely to undergo either the intellectual snobbery or the commercial exclusion that my generation had to withstand, to one degree or another. Some of them have been accepted at the Iowa State writing program; all have published stories before appearing in this collection. That doesn’t mean that they’ll all make money—which is, however you slice it, still the hallmark of American success—or that they’ll all be short-listed for Booker Prizes and be offered the kind of prestigious teaching post where you don’t actually have to teach. They’ll still be gambling, as we all do, on being noticed at all. Comes with the territory.

  I envy them all, in one way: To be at the very beginning of their own careers, with so much ahead to be discovered, invented—and reinvented—to be attempted and flat-out screwed up (speaking for myself, I’ve never learned a damn thing—any damn thing—without first doing it wrong, usually a lot of times). And then, one midnight, to surprise themselves with a completely unexpected triumph. Learning what comes effortlessly, and with natural delight . . . and chancing the frustration of what does not, and still persists in dancing tauntingly on the horizon. And knowing, knowing that you’ll never get it right. That there is no right: just the Thing in one’s head—entirely real, eminently visible to the writer (and the painter, and the sculptor, and the musician)—that emerges as it chooses, and never quite as you choose.

  That’s the part I don’t envy them for at all because, judging from the quality of their work, they’ll all keep trying. As will I. Even though I know better, being an old guy.

  HUNGRY DAUGHTERS OF STARVING MOTHERS

  Alyssa Wong

  Alyssa Wong’s considerable reputation rests on only the handful of stories. Still in her mid-twenties, she is the youngest author to appear in this collection. Her work has appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Black Static, Tor.com, and Lightspeed: Queers Destroy Science Fiction. Her first published story, “The Fisher Queen,” earned immediate acclaim and was nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, and Shirley Jackson awards. Wong’s fourth story, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” was published the following year to even stronger acclaim. It won the Nebula and World Fantasy awards, was nominated for the Shirley Jackson and the Bram Stoker awards, and was a finalist for the Locus Award. She was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2016. She lives in Raleigh.

  “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” is a warning about compulsion and the corrupting powers of negative emotions.

  As my date—Harvey? Harvard?—brags about his alma mater and Manhattan penthouse, I take a bite of overpriced kale and watch his ugly thoughts swirl overhead. It’s hard to pay attention to him with my stomach growling and my body ajitter, for all he’s easy on the eyes. Harvey doesn’t look much older than I am, but his thoughts, covered in spines and centipede feet, glisten with ancient grudges and carry an entitled, Ivy League stink.

  “My apartment has the most amazing view of the city,” he’s saying, his thoughts sliding long over each other like dark, bristling snakes. Each one is as thick around as his Rolex-draped wrist. “I just installed a Jacuzzi along the west wall so that I can watch the sun set while I relax after getting back from the gym.”

  I nod, half-listening to the words coming out of his mouth. I’m much more interested in the ones hissing through the teeth of the thoughts above him.

  She’s got perfect tits, li’l handfuls just waiting to be squeezed. I love me some perky tits.

  I’m gonna fuck this bitch so hard she’ll never walk straight again.

  Gross. “That sounds wonderful,” I say as I sip champagne and gaze at him through my false eyelashes, hoping the dimmed screen of my iPhone isn’t visible through the tablecloth below. This dude is boring as hell, and I’m already back on Tindr, thumbing through next week’s prospective dinner dates.

  She’s so into me, she’ll be begging for it by the end of the night.

  I can’t wait to cut her up.

  My eyes flick up sharply. “I’m sorry?” I say.

  Harvey blinks. “I said, Argentina is a beautiful country.”

  Pretty little thing. She’ll look so good spread out all over the floor.

  “Right,” I say. “Of course.” Blood’s pulsing through my head so hard it probably looks like I’ve got a wicked blush.

  I’m so excited, I’m half hard already.

  You and me both, I think, turning my iPhone off and smiling my prettiest smile.

  The waiter swings by with another bottle of champagne and a dessert menu burned into a wooden card, but I wave him off. “Dinner’s been lovely,” I whisper to Harvey, leaning in and kissing his cheek, “but I’ve got a different kind of dessert in mind.”

  Ahhh, go the ugly thoughts, settling into a gentle, rippling wave across his shoulders. I’m going to take her home and split her all the way from top to bottom. Like a fucking fruit tart.

  That is not the way I normally eat fruit tarts, but who am I to judge? I passed on dessert, after all.

  When he pays the bill, he can’t stop grinning at me. Neither can the ugly thoughts hissing and cackling behind his ear.

  “What’s got you so happy?” I ask coyly.

  “I’m just excited to spend the rest of the evening with you,” he replies.

  The fucker has his own parking spot! No taxis for us; he’s even brought the Tesla. The leather seats smell buttery and sweet, and as I slide in and make myself comfortable, the rankness of his thoughts leaves a stain in the air. It’s enough to leave me light-headed, almost purring. As we cruise uptown toward his fancy-ass penthouse, I ask him to pull over near the Queensboro Bridge for a second.

  Annoyance flashes across his face, but he parks the Tesla in a side street. I lurch into an alley, tottering over empty cans and discarded cigarettes in my four-inch heels, and puke a trail of champagne and kale over to the dumpster shoved up against the apartment building.

  “Are you all right?” Harvey calls.

  “I’m fine,” I slur. Not a single curious window opens overhead.

  His steps echo down the alley. He’s gotten out of the car, and he’s walking toward me like I’m an animal that he n
eeds to approach carefully.

  Maybe I should do it now.

  Yes! Now, now, while the bitch is occupied.

  But what about the method? I won’t get to see her insides all pretty everywhere—

  I launch myself at him, fingers digging sharp into his body, and bite down hard on his mouth. He tries to shout, but I swallow the sound and shove my tongue inside. There, just behind his teeth, is what I’m looking for: ugly thoughts, viscous as boiled tendon. I suck them howling and fighting into my throat as Harvey’s body shudders, little mewling noises escaping from his nose.

  I feel decadent and filthy, swollen with the cruelest dreams I’ve ever tasted. I can barely feel Harvey’s feeble struggles; in this state, with the darkest parts of himself drained from his mouth into mine, he’s no match for me.

  They’re never as strong as they think they are.

  By the time he finally goes limp, the last of the thoughts disappearing down my throat, my body’s already changing. My limbs elongate, growing thicker, and my dress feels too tight as my ribs expand. I’ll have to work quickly. I strip off my clothes with practiced ease, struggling a little to work the bodice free of the gym-toned musculature swelling under my skin.

  It doesn’t take much time to wrestle Harvey out of his clothes, either. My hands are shaking but strong, and as I button up his shirt around me and shrug on his jacket, my jaw has creaked into an approximation of his and the ridges of my fingerprints have reshaped themselves completely. Harvey is so much bigger than me, and the expansion of space eases the pressure on my boiling belly, stuffed with ugly thoughts as it is. I stuff my discarded outfit into my purse, my high heels clicking against the empty glass jar at its bottom, and sling the strap over my now-broad shoulder.

  I kneel to check Harvey’s pulse—slow but steady—before rolling his unconscious body up against the dumpster, covering him with trash bags. Maybe he’ll wake up, maybe he won’t. Not my problem, as long as he doesn’t wake in the next ten seconds to see his doppelganger strolling out of the alley, wearing his clothes and fingering his wallet and the keys to his Tesla.

  There’s a cluster of drunk college kids gawking at Harvey’s car. I level an arrogant stare at them—oh, but do I wear this body so much better than he did!—and they scatter.

  I might not have a license, but Harvey’s body remembers how to drive.

  The Tesla revs sweetly under me, but I ditch it in a parking garage in Bedford, stripping in the relative privacy of the second-to-highest level, edged behind a pillar. After laying the keys on the driver’s seat over Harvey’s neatly folded clothes and shutting the car door, I pull the glass jar from my purse and vomit into it as quietly as I can. Black liquid, thick and viscous, hits the bottom of the jar, hissing and snarling Harvey’s words. My body shudders, limbs retracting, spine reshaping itself, as I empty myself of him.

  It takes a few more minutes to ease back into an approximation of myself, at least enough to slip my dress and heels back on, pocket the jar, and comb my tangled hair out with my fingers. The parking attendant nods at me as I walk out of the garage, his eyes sliding disinterested over me, his thoughts a gray, indistinct murmur.

  The L train takes me back home to Bushwick, and when I push open the apartment door, Aiko is in the kitchen, rolling mochi paste out on the counter.

  “You’re here,” I say stupidly. I’m still a little foggy from shaking off Harvey’s form, and strains of his thoughts linger in me, setting my blood humming uncomfortably hot.

  “I’d hope so. You invited me over.” She hasn’t changed out of her catering company clothes, and her short, sleek hair frames her face, aglow in the kitchen light. Not a single ugly thought casts its shadow across the stove behind her. “Did you forget again?”

  “No,” I lie, kicking my shoes off at the door. “I totally would never do something like that. Have you been here long?”

  “About an hour, nothing unusual. The doorman let me in, and I kept your spare key.” She smiles briefly, soft compared to the brusque movements of her hands. She’s got flour on her rolled-up sleeves, and my heart flutters the way it never does when I’m out hunting. “I’m guessing your date was pretty shit. You probably wouldn’t have come home at all if it had gone well.”

  “You could say that.” I reach into my purse and stash the snarling jar in the fridge, where it clatters against the others, nearly a dozen bottles of malignant leftovers labeled as health drinks.

  Aiko nods to her right. “I brought you some pastries from the event tonight. They’re in the paper bag on the counter.”

  “You’re an angel.” I edge past her so I don’t make bodily contact. Aiko thinks I have touch issues, but the truth is, she smells like everything good in the world, solid and familiar, both light and heavy at the same time, and it’s enough to drive a person mad.

  “He should have bought you a cab back, at least,” says Aiko, reaching for a bowl of red bean paste. I fiddle with the bag of pastries, pretending to select something from its contents. “I swear, it’s like you’re a magnet for terrible dates.”

  She’s not wrong; I’m very careful about who I court. After all, that’s how I stay fed. But no one in the past has been as delicious, as hideously depraved as Harvey. No one else has been a killer.

  I’m going to take her home and split her all the way from top to bottom.

  “Maybe I’m too weird,” I say.

  “You’re probably too normal. Only socially maladjusted creeps use Tindr.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I complain.

  She grins, flicking a bit of red bean paste at me. I lick it off of my arm. “You know what I mean. Come visit my church with me sometime, yeah? There are plenty of nice boys there.”

  “The dating scene in this city depresses me,” I mutter, flicking open my Tindr app with my thumb. “I’ll pass.”

  “Come on, Jen, put that away.” Aiko hesitates. “Your mom called while you were out. She wants you to move back to Flushing.”

  I bark out a short, sharp laugh, my good mood evaporating. “What else is new?”

  “She’s getting old,” Aiko says. “And she’s lonely.”

  “I bet. All her mahjong partners are dead, pretty much.” I can imagine her in her little apartment in Flushing, huddled over her laptop, floral curtains pulled tight over the windows to shut out the rest of the world. My ma, whose apartment walls are alive with hissing, covered in the ugly, bottled remains of her paramours.

  Aiko sighs, joining me at the counter and leaning back against me. For once, I don’t move away. Every muscle in my body is tense, straining. I’m afraid I might catch fire, but I don’t want her to leave. “Would it kill you to be kind to her?”

  I think about my baba evaporating into thin air when I was five years old, what was left of him coiled in my ma’s stomach. “Are you telling me to go back?”

  She doesn’t say anything for a bit. “No,” she says at last. “That place isn’t good for you. That house isn’t good for anyone.”

  Just a few inches away, an army of jars full of black, viscous liquid wait in the fridge, their contents muttering to themselves. Aiko can’t hear them, but each slosh against the glass is a low, nasty hiss:

  who does she think she is, the fucking cunt

  should’ve got her when I had the chance

  I can still feel Harvey, his malice and ugly joy, on my tongue. I’m already full of things my ma gave me. “I’m glad we agree.”

  Over the next few weeks, I gorge myself on the pickup artists and grad students populating the St. Marks hipster bars, but nothing tastes good after Harvey. Their watery essences, squeezed from their owners with barely a whimper of protest, barely coat my stomach. Sometimes I take too much. I scrape them dry and leave them empty, shaking their forms off like rainwater when I’m done.

  I tell Aiko I’ve been partying when she says I look haggard. She tells me to quit drinking so much, her face impassive, her thoughts clouded with concern. She starts coming over more often, even cooking
dinner for me, and her presence both grounds me and drives me mad.

  “I’m worried about you,” she says as I lie on the floor, flipping listlessly through pages of online dating profiles, looking for the emptiness, the rot, that made Harvey so appealing. She’s cooking my mom’s lo mein recipe, the oily smell making my skin itch. “You’ve lost so much weight and there’s nothing in your fridge, just a bunch of empty jam jars.”

  I don’t tell her that Harvey’s lies under my bed, that I lick its remnants every night to send my nerves back into euphoria. I don’t tell her how often I dream about my ma’s place, the shelves of jars she never let me touch. “Is it really okay for you to spend so much time away from your catering business?” I say instead. “Time is money, and Jimmy gets pissy when he has to make all the desserts without you.”

  Aiko sets a bowl of lo mein in front of me and joins me on the ground. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here,” she says, and a dangerous, luminous sweetness blooms in my chest.

  But the hunger grows worse every day, and soon I can’t trust myself around her. I deadbolt the door, and when she stops by my apartment to check on me, I refuse to let her in. Texts light up my phone like a fleet of fireworks as I huddle under a blanket on the other side, my face pressed against the wood, my fingers twitching.

  “Please, Jen, I don’t understand,” she says from behind the door. “Did I do something wrong?”

  I can’t wait to cut her up, I think, and hate myself even more.

  By the time Aiko leaves, her footsteps echoing down the hallway, I’ve dug deep gouges in the door’s paint with my nails and teeth, my mouth full of her intoxicating scent.